If you are new here, we recommend following [[Getting_Started/Build/kdesrc-build|this kdesrc-build tutorial]]. It's the most hassle free method, and will help you get up and running in no time. It even has neat progress indicators for compiling modules - what's not to like about it. It was previously called kdesvn-build.}}

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== Abstract ==

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Assuming you are still here...this tutorial shows a labor intensive way to get KDE from trunk running on Linux/BSD systems.

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There are also tutorials for [[Getting_Started/Build/KDE4/FreeBSD|FreeBSD]], [[/Windows|Windows]], [[/Mac OS X|Mac OS X]] and [http://solaris.kde.org/ Solaris]. This tutorial creates a special user, kde-devel, that will run KDE trunk. On the one hand, this allows other users to continue with another KDE version. On the other hand, testing special system-wide code like the KDE display manager is not possible. There is a tutorial to

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[[Getting_Started/Build/KDE4/onVmWare|set up KDE 4 trunk on a virtual machine]].

It is important to keep the development version from interfering with the rest of your computer, The method covered here is creating a dedicated kde-devel user.

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We will need to:

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#Add the user

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#Set the shell to bash

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#and may have to use sudoedit if we want to be able to sudo

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#Create a .bashrc file with environment variables for the build system

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A graphical tool is avalable from most distributions, if you have KDE you can get to this tool via: K->Computer->System Settings->User Management

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{{Note|

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Less Safe Alternative:

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One can do everything under your normal user account. This is recommended, as a separate user is quite a bit of work.

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See [[Getting_Started/Increased_Productivity_in_KDE4_with_Scripts|Increased Productivity in KDE4 with Scripts]]

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for more details.

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The environment variables determinate what version you use. Proceed same as here except put the environment variables in a file. In your <tt>.bashrc</tt> file add the line <tt>source .kde_devel_env</tt>. renaming the .kde_devel_env file would make them not be loaded, so you wouldn't use the devel version.

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}}

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===Commandline useradd===

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Some systems are configured to use {{path|/bin/sh}}. Many users prefer Bash{{path|/bin/bash}}

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{{Note|

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On Ark Linux and Fedora, you can skip the <tt>-s /bin/bash</tt> switch - {{path|/bin/sh}} is {{path|bash}}.

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}}

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<code bash>

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sudo useradd -m kde-devel -s /bin/bash

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sudo passwd kde-devel

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</code>

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==== commandline permissions and groups ====

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Edit your /etc/groups file to add the kde-devel user to all the groups that you need (probably the groups that your usual username is already assigned to).

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You may need to add user to sudoers file. (beyond scope of this tutorial)

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=== Setting up the environment ===

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Copy the {{path|~/.bashrc}} from your normal user account to the new kde-devel account.

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Next, copy and paste the contents of the [[Getting Started/Increased Productivity in KDE4 with Scripts/.bashrc|example .bashrc]] into {{path|~kde-devel/.bashrc}}. Be sure to comment out the line <tt>alias make=makeobj</tt> if you do not have the <tt>[[Getting Started/Build/KDE4/Prerequisites#Abstract|makeobj]]</tt> command available. (What is this, how do we know???)

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Alternatively, you can download the kde-sdk a.k.a kdesdk package (or perform a subversion checkout) and include the kde-sdk/scripts/ directory in your path. (What is this???)

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You will probably also want to modify the path to make sure it doesn't include your kde3 paths.

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Also if you want to use KDevelop to develop KDE 4 applications you may pass the ''-GKDevelop3'' flag to the ''cmake'' command (to make CMake generate KDevelop project files, it will help to avoid rebuilding in the future, see [[Getting_Started/Set_up_KDE_4_for_development#Setting_up_the_environment|this]]).

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To make it run, you have to open a new bash or to execute

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<code bash>

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source ~/.bashrc

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</code>

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This will provide access to commands such as <tt>cmakekde</tt> that are used in this tutorial as well as ensure that the proper paths are in place for Qt, KDE and CMake binaries.

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For more information, please read the [[Getting Started/Increased Productivity in KDE4 with Scripts]] tutorial.

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=== Using the kde-devel User ===

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To get a text-only command prompt, say from konsole

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su - kde-devel

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'(need hyphen otherwise your environment will be the same as your regular user)

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To Log in Text-only from a virtual terminal:

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CTRL-F1 ( CTRL-F7 is normally graphical )

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To use a shell that can pop up applications when your normal user is logged in:

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<code bash>

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ssh -X kde-devel@localhost

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</code>

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{{Note|

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If the ssh command fails, check out the [[Getting_Started/Set_up_KDE_4_for_development#Launching_KDE_4_apps|Launching KDE 4 apps]] section of the [[Getting_Started/Set_up_KDE_4_for_development|KDE4 development guide]].

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}}

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== Required packages from your distribution ==

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The requirements to build kde4 from source vary from distribution to distribution. Instructions for your distribution are provided below:

[[Getting_Started/Build/KDE4/Kubuntu and Debian|Kubuntu and Debian]] (or check out [[Getting_Started/Using_Project_Neon_to_contribute_to_KDE|Project Neon]]), [[Getting_Started/Build/KDE4/openSUSE|openSUSE]] ([http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:KDE_developers_guide specific guide for openSUSE]. However be careful because it updates a huge number of your stable packages.),

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[[Getting_Started/Build/KDE4/Gentoo|Gentoo]],

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[[Getting_Started/Build/KDE4/LFS|Linux from Scratch]] or to build from source.

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[[Getting_Started/Build/KDE4/Mandriva|Mandriva]]

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[[Getting_Started/Build/KDE4/Generic|any other distro]]

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=== Optional Documentation Dependencies ===

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For trunk you also now need docbook-dtd42-xml for the docs. Depending on your distribution please get the docbook related packages and the 4.2 DTD.

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Your next compilation step depends on the packages supplied by your distro.

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== Compiling kde-qt, etc. ==

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If you do not want to use the packages provided by your distro you can compile things like Qt yourself. Instructions for building all dependencies including CMake, Qt4 (kde-qt) and kdesupport are available in [[Getting_Started/Build/KDE4/Prerequisites|the build prerequisites page]]. Note that automoc, strigi, soprano, and a few other things are part of kdesupport, so if you have errors about these missing, you'll need to get kdesupport.

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=== Useful subversion tweaks ===

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{{Warning|Do not use this method when you don't know what you are doing or just want to test some trunk feature, seriously!

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You can create a very costly load when you accidentially checkout all of trunk or for example all of "trunk/KDE" just to build single modules. This would generate immense useless load on the svn server.}}

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If you check out large parts of svn trunk regularly or if you want to create patches which touch several modules at once, you should try to checkout an empty tree of trunk first and then update only the relevant modules, for example:

That way you can move stuff around all over the trunk repository, e.g. from playground to kdereview or to KDE/*. The following examples assume that you only want to test or work on single and few modules of trunk.

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This way updating the whole repository to a (hopefully) consitent state, the same revision, is really easy:

check out http://kdesvn-build.kde.org/ you may not need to do all of this stuff.

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}}

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=== Troubleshooting ===

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Please note, that requirements and dependancies frequently change.

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You are running an UNSTABLE version, and simply compiling is not guaranteed. You will need to review errors and locate packages, (see acquire dependencies above) and [[Getting_Started/Build/KDE4/Troubleshooting|Troubleshooting]] information.

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We can now move on to building KDE's most essential libraries.

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=== kdelibs ===

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Very important for lots of things, you may need to see troubleshooting and install some things from kdesupport first.

We change to the base source directory (line 1) then make and go into the KDE directory (line 3). We download the sources for kdelibs using subversion (line 4), go into the new {{path|~/kde/src/KDE/kdelibs}} directory (line 5), and commence the build (line 6). This will leave us in the <tt>kdelibs</tt> build directory after the build is completed.

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{{tip|There might be missing dependencies on your system! They are easily overlooked in the output of <tt>cmakekde</tt>.

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You might want to do a <tt>cmake $KDE_SRC/KDE/MODULE_NAME</tt> prior to compiling any kde modules (like kdelibs, kdepimlibs etc.)}}

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==== Additional KDE-specific CMake know-how ====

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There are additional CMake modules in {{path|kdelibs/cmake/modules/}} that are necessary for building KDE4 applications. These will be installed for you when kdelibs itself is installed.

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To make a non-debug-release (e.g. suppressing all kDebug() messages), use e.g.

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cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release . && make && make install

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==== Troubleshooting ====

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For troubleshooting information, see the [[Getting_Started/Build/KDE4/Troubleshooting#Issues_building_kdelibs|kdelibs troubleshooting section]].

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=== kdepimlibs ===

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Currently kdebase depends on kdepimlibs so it is required to install it first. These libraries are also shared by other packages such as those within kdepim, kdeutils and kdenetwork.

We go into the KDE source directory (line 1), download the source code for kdepimlibs using subversion (line 2) and then go into the new {{path|~/kde/src/KDE/kdepimlibs}} directory (line 3). We then commence the build (line 4). This will leave us in the <tt>kdepimlibs</tt> build directory after the build is completed.

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==== Troubleshooting ====

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For troubleshooting information, see the [[Getting_Started/Build/KDE4/Troubleshooting#Issues_building_kdepimlibs|kdepimlibs troubleshooting section]].

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=== kdebase ===

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kdebase is divided into three parts:

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* '''apps'''

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:This contains applications like Dolphin or KWrite.

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* '''runtime'''

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:This contains things needed by every application at runtime, like icons. It is a required dependency for each KDE application, so you have to compile and install this.

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* '''workspace'''

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:This contains things specific to the KDE desktop, like Plasma or the window manager. Most stuff here depends on X11. You only need it if you want to build a full KDE desktop.

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You can build all of kdebase at once, which is described in the recipe below. If you only want to build kdebase-runtime, which is the only requirement, you can replace <code bash>cd kdebase</code> with <code bash>cd kdebase/runtime</code> in the recipe below.

For troubleshooting information, see the [[Getting_Started/Build/KDE4/Troubleshooting#Issues_building_kdebase|kdebase troubleshooting section]].

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== Translations ==

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Most KDE users are going to install translations before being able to use their desktop properly. Full information is given in the [[Development/Tutorials/Localization/Building_KDE's_l10n_Module|Localisation tutorial]].

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For a single language, the following receipe installs messages and translated documentation:

In order to keep the kde4 installation up to date, each of the modules installed should be updated periodically. As Monday is the day for big changes in kdelibs, Tuesday may be the best day to do this. For each module checked out, run <tt>svn up</tt> and <tt>make</tt>.

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For example:

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<code bash>

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cs kdesupport # cs is not a typo

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svn up

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cb # cb is not a typo

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make && make install

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</code>

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Note: it is not necessary to run cmakekde for updates.

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== Installing a subset of a module ==

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Many modules in KDE contain a large number of programs which could take a long time to download and compile. In cases where you want to work only on a particular program or programs in a module, it is possible to download and compile particular folders. In some cases, certain folders are required for any build of the module. This is determined in the CMakeLists.txt file of the module. For example the [http://websvn.kde.org/branches/KDE/4.0/kdegames/CMakeLists.txt?view=markup kdegames CMakeLists.txt file] lists:

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<code>

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add_subdirectory(libkdegames)

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add_subdirectory(libkmahjongg)

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macro_optional_add_subdirectory(doc)

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macro_optional_add_subdirectory(lskat)

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macro_optional_add_subdirectory(katomic)

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</code>

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So, the libkdegames and libkmahjongg directories are required to build any of kdegames. The cmake directory will also usually be required. All the other directories (doc, katomic etc) are optional. They will be built if present on your machine. In this example, we build kmahjongg and kbattleship: